An Anaheim police officer keeps watch above the Angels' dugout during a recent series against the Boston Red Sox. KEVIN SULLIVAN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Team statements

Honda Center statement:

From Tim Ryan, President and CEO of Honda Center: “The live event experience should center around enjoying the concert, show or sporting event you’re attending that day. To that end, providing a safe environment for our fans has always been among our highest objectives.”

Angels team statement:

“Our organization devotes a great deal of attention to providing a safe and enjoyable environment for all of our guests visiting the stadium throughout the year. We think the numbers you present reflect just that. As those numbers continue to drop, our objective with Anaheim PD and stadium security is to remain proactive in maintaining Angel Stadium as one of the safest fan destinations in professional sports.”

Game night, and Alejandra Perez sat under the bright lights and big hats outside Angel Stadium with no greater concern than how her beloved Halos would do against the surging A's. Drunken jerks? Fan fights? She wasn't worried.

"It's a different atmosphere," said Perez, 21, of Garden Grove, a lifelong fan who wore her allegiance on her Angels-red sleeves. "More calm, peaceful, chill. Definitely more chill. It's Orange County."

But police statistics show low levels of crime at Angel Stadium and Honda Center. Even the most common complaints – fights, petty thefts, drunkenness – rise to the level of a police response so infrequently that an average three-day homestand might pass without an incident, the statistics show.

•Police reported 91 simple assaults at Angels games between 2007 and 2011 – a crime category that can include even an attempt to throw a punch. To put that in perspective, the worst year was 2009, with 28 simple assaults – less than one for every three home games.

•Police arrested 41 people for public drunkenness at Angels games during that time period, an average of about one every 10 games. They took 59 petty-theft reports, about one every six or seven games.

•At Honda Center, police made 42 drunk-in-public arrests, an average of around one for every 19 Ducks hockey games or other events. The numbers for simple assault (41) and petty thefts (43) were nearly the same.

SUCCESS SPELLS TROUBLE

The statistics rise and fall with no obvious patterns, except for one: A big year for the team tends to bring more people to the stadium – and with them, more chances for trouble. Arrests at Angel Stadium, for example, spiked in 2009 – the year the Angels played deep into the postseason.

At Honda Center, police made more than twice as many arrests for public drunkenness in 2007 as they did in any other year since. That was the year the Ducks won the Stanley Cup.

"The more folks you have, the more chance for that interaction you have," Blair said. "It's a multiplication problem, really."

More serious crimes are rare at the Anaheim venues. Police at Angel Stadium arrest a few people every year for narcotics offenses, the statistics show, and take a half-dozen reports of stolen cars in a bad year. Honda Center has had two aggravated assaults in the past five years; Angel Stadium has had six.

"We never have any problems," said Andrew Takach, 50, of the Bay Area, who travels to Angel Stadium a few times a year to root for his Oakland A's. "For the most part, these fans are some of the nicest I've seen."

Police statistics are notoriously hard to use; an increase in arrests, for example, could point to a growing crime problem or just signal a crackdown by police. And comparing statistics from Angel Stadium with those of Dodger Stadium is like comparing apples with elephants.

OFF-DUTY OFFICERS

In part, that's because the two stadiums have very different police forces.

In Anaheim, the officers who patrol Angel Stadium and the Honda Center alongside the security guards are still on-duty, which means they file police reports like any other officer. Dodger Stadium has long hired off-duty officers; incidents that they handle on their own, without calling in an on-duty officer, wouldn't necessarily make it into the statistics.

The Register obtained the same five years of crime numbers for Dodger Stadium as for Angel Stadium and the Honda Center. But the Anaheim and Los Angeles police departments provided their numbers in different formats, making any head-to-head comparison even shakier. Anaheim broke its numbers down by venue; Los Angeles provided numbers by addresses and intersection.

Using only the most conservative measure – crimes reported at the physical address of Dodger Stadium – police made 253 arrests for public drunkenness between 2007 and 2011, the statistics show. Add adjacent streets, entrances and parking lots, and the number jumps past 550. More than 200 of those were in 2007 alone, as police cracked down on drinking problems at the stadium.

Dodger Stadium and its surroundings also generated 62 reports of battery in those five years, but that's a different crime than the simple assaults that Anaheim reported; battery is a physical use of force against someone else. Police also reported at least 22 thefts, 33 narcotics arrests and 15 aggravated assaults in and around the stadium.

Several categories of crime numbers had fallen at Dodger Stadium in recent years – drunkenness, narcotics, theft, aggravated assaults. Critics have said that indicated less-aggressive enforcement at the stadium – typified by the white polo shirts that officers wore instead of their uniforms starting in 2009 – and not the disappearance of troublemakers.

The Dodgers declined to comment, except to say in a statement that security is a "paramount priority."

"That makes me feel better knowing (officers) are walking around," said Ignacio Nunez, 39, from Rancho Cucamonga, who was at a game earlier this month with his nephew and two children. He said he hadn't seen any fights this year, but avoids the "rougher crowd" he still sees in the stadium's pavilion area.

The crime numbers for the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles are even less useful for comparisons than those from Dodgers Stadium. That's because Staples Center is part of a much larger entertainment complex that shares parking lots and public spaces – so there's no way to measure crime from its fans unless they're almost in their seats.

Using only its physical address, Staples Center had no arrests for public drunkenness, 31 battery reports, 35 thefts and 10 burglaries from vehicles.

Even the biggest numbers at any of the stadiums represent only a speck of a fraction of the total number of people who come through them every year. Angel Stadium can seat more people than live in Brea and topped 3 million annual fans every year between 2007 and 2011. The Honda Center could easily seat every resident of La Palma and sees around 1.5 million people a year.

Yet experts have seen a steady increase in public concern about fan violence, fueled by high-profile incidents such as the Stow beating and the street rioting that broke out after the Lakers 2010 championship.

"They feel the need for – or the right to – just let their emotions loose without any regard," he said. They see their ticket stub, he added, as a "license to let loose."

Alcohol appears to be one common factor in violent sports incidents, said Alana Penza, who studies fan violence as the program manager of the Institute for the Study of Sports Incidents at the University of Southern Mississippi. But stadiums can also have an atmosphere and a reputation that encourage rough behavior, she said – from Dodger Stadium to Philadelphia's football stadium.

Penza reviewed nearly 90 incidents of fan violence at amateur and pro games between 2005 and 2011 and said football generated the most, followed by baseball. The East Coast led the way, but the West Coast wasn't far behind – and California accounted for nearly all of the West Coast incidents.

Last month, a coalition of Southern California teams that includes the Angels and Ducks unveiled a fan code of conduct meant to "foster a comfortable and safe atmosphere." The code asks fans to watch their language and their alcohol consumption, to keep from throwing things and from fighting.

Gatto said he talked to security at Dodger Stadium and other venues – none in Anaheim – about how they track crime numbers. "You'd be surprised how many go unreported," he said. A drunk fan cursing and throwing beer, for example, might never show up in a police log.

"Whether those stats really reflect the number of jerks at a game, I don't know," he said.

Back at Angel Stadium, Justin Hathaway tried to corral his 4-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son toward the entrance for a game last week. He's been coming for years, maybe half a dozen games every season, and he's seen one fight – a few punches thrown during a 2004 game against the Red Sox. He attributes it with a smile to "just the usual Red Sox fan idiocy."

"The kids love coming. My son, he's only 1 1/2, he's already saying "Baseball, baseball," said Hathaway, 35, of Rancho Cucamonga. "Ninety-nine percent of the time, there really isn't an issue here. Which is great."

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